Thanks to all those who responded with nominations for Great Canadian
Scientists.
About a month ago I posted the following:
I am planning to write a new book called "Great Canadian Scientists."
Please forward your nominations to me: sh…@cs.sfu.ca
The rules are that the person must be a Canadian citizen. They don’t have
to be born in Canada or even live in Canada, but they must have (or have
had, if they are dead) Canadian citizenship while they are/were great
Canadian scientists.
Some obvious names that come to mind are Banting (Insulin), Herzberg (‘71
Nobel Prize, chemistry), Polanyi (‘86 Nobel prize: chemiluminescence).
I’m not quite sure what should constitute greatness, and there may be a
gray area here. If you have any ideas on criteria for greatness, I would be
pleased to hear them. In any event, please nominate people even if you are
not sure they are great. I would like as big a list as possible.
Please give me a name and email address, phone number or mail address, so
that I can contact the person. If you don’t know any of the above, then
give me their last known whereabouts. Also please give your reason for why
you think the person should be considered a great Canadian scientist.
After I have the list, I will choose about ten of the most interesting ones
and do in-depth biographies of those individuals in the style of Tracy
Kidder’s "Soul of a New Machine." The rest of the great Canadian scientists
will appear in an appedix with one paragraph biographies.
If you have any other ideas about this project, I am interested to hear
them. From time to time I will post the results of the project to
====
Sorry I forgot to say where I would post the results. I will post them to
can.general.
So far, I have received 21 nominations as follows:
First Name Last Name Nominator Famous For
———- ——— —————– ———————-
Sid Altman Kuszewski, John Catalytic RNA (Nobel Chem 90)
Frederick Banting me discovery of insulin (Nobel ‘23med)
James R. Bolton Warden, Joseph chemistry?
Brian C. Conway Tellefsen, Karen Electrochemistry
H.S.M. Coxeter Calkin, Neil J. Regular polytopes (math)
Jack Edmonds Snoeyink, Jack Math, computer science, op research
Gerhard Herzberg me Optical spectroscopy (Nobel chem 71)
J. D. Jackson Austern, Matt Electrodynamics
Irving Kaplansky Knighten, Bob Algebra and functional analysis
George S. Kell Kell, Dave Hot water freezing
Michael L. Klein Marchi, Massimo Theoretical Chemistry
K. J. Laidler Tellefsen, Karen Chemical Kinetics
Raymond Lemieux Smith, Earl First synthesized glucose
Edward S. Lowry himself Computer programming
Lawrence Morley Strome, Murray Plate tektonics
Farley Mowat Abbott, John Northern Animal rights?
John Polanyi me chemiluminescensce (Nobel Chem 86)
Anatol Rapoport Lloyd-Jones, David conflict theory, game theory
Bill Tutte Royle, Gordon matroid theory (math)
Ilan Vardi Vardi, Ilan ?
J. Tuzo Wilson Collier, John Continental Drift theory
—————————————————————————-
Very few people talked about what constitutes greatness and this is a major
problem. Some comments were as follows:
From Ron_Macken…@mindlink.bc.ca:
I encourage you to push hard on the criteria for greatness. I would be
concerned about the ongoing self selection process for acclaim. It reminds me
of an article on poetry in a recent Atlantic magazine. Someone suddenly looked
at it and found all kinds of poetry classes, courses, professors, literary
magazines, but stood up and queried that, if all of this apparent interest, why
is there no popular interest in poetry. Why nothing in the regular magazines
like Harpers, etc.
Then the discovery. It is only poetry professionals reading the output
of other poetry professionals in journals financed likely through Canada
Council. The principle becomes almost a select, closed circle of self
adulation, financed by those outside the circle.
The issue with science is similiar. Science has done well convincing
we the taxpayer that we should somehow pay for all of this, and not expect any
particular result that may be helpful to any of us, and not to even be able to
understand what any of them is talking about. The concept of
accoutability, or ten year relevance to the human condition, is therefore put
forward.
From a CyberEncounters event held at NYU I got the following ideas for
greatness:
who’s measuring the greatness? – people who can read & have modems?
greatness in an artist is the artists’ ability to convince others that their
personal vision is reality.
the one with the most money is the best artist.
Although these refer to art and are quite cynical, they may encourage debate.
I hope this posting will get others to nominate more Great Canadian
Scientists, and to discuss what is "great" what is "canadian" and what is
"scientist". Some mathematicians were nominated and maybe this should not be
allowed. No women have been nominated so far.
Please respond to:
sh…@cs.sfu.ca
or
Barry Shell 604-876-5790
4692 Quebec St. Vancouver, B.C. V5V 3M1 Canada
Thanks to all who responded already.